Happy Wanderers Paphos 

The Happy Wanderers began with an idea at the UKCA in January 1995 and a meeting was held at a taverna in Drouseia Square attended by 16 interested people. Among those attending were: Vivy Symonds, George and Pat Bates, Tony Moy, Maureen Moeton and Maurice Thompson. It was decided to form a walking group called The Happy Wanderers with the aim of organising one walk per week anywhere in the Paphos District. This was accomplished, the first official walk of the newly formed group being at Lysos . The walks would be on a Wednesday, which at that time was half day closing, would start at 10am and would cover a distance of up to 8 miles. The walks would have a picnic lunch and were aimed to finish by 3pm. After each walk the group would visit a local taverna or coffee shop for refreshments and as a thank you to the local people for allowing the group to walk in their area. 

That year Vivy Symonds was chosen as group leader, assisted by George and Pat Bates.  It was a wet day but the intrepid group then walked to Inia before returning to the same taverna for a village meze.

If you are interested in the walks done over the first few years, they are recorded in the library of the UKCA.

The Happy Wanderers flourished and a competition was held to design a logo for the group. That logo is still in use today.

Whilst the Happy Wanderers were under the UKCA banner full membership of the group was only available to UKCA members, so on Tuesday, November 7^th 2006 an EGM was held at The Coral Breeze Taverna (now Darcie's) and those present voted to become independent of the UKCA. On Tuesday, 30^th January 2007 the first AGM was held.

In 2020 we became part of the Paphos Third Age (P3A), an umbrella organisation with almost 50 groups offering a wide range of activities.